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  1. - Top - End - #151
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    So today we're going to compare and contrast the various XCOM-alike games I've played in 2020:

    XCOM 2:
    As I said before, I like XCOM 2, I just think there's too much of it. And after a while there's a number of issues that really, really start to grate on my nerves. These being the almost complete indifference to geography of the strategic layer (odd for a strategy game), the increasingly gimmicky feeling tactical layer, and the extreme rigidity of the two action system.

    XCOM: Chimera Squad.
    I didn't like this. Breach mode was a good idea, but hanging a game on it was a lot. I found their take on post mind controlled aliens to be just about the laziest, least interesting thing they could have done with the concept - hey, the psionic vat grown mind controlling dude engages in Relatable Witty Banter like everybody else! I sure feel related to and intellectually engaged now! Solved none of my issues with the base game, and added a bunch more.

    Gears Tactics:
    Gears solves the problems with the strategy layer being a glorified mission select menu by just having a mission select menu. Sort of a destroy the village to save it approach, but in this case quite effective. It also substantially cranked up the tactical layer by giving every single dude three AP which could be used for anything, in any order. Move - shoot - move, shoot - shoot - shoot, move - move - chainsaw colonoscopy, whatever floats your boat. This is just intensely liberating; the ability to shoot more than once a turn really eases up on the frustration of missing seemingly unmissable shots, and even something as simple as being able to shoot then move makes the game way, way less brittle feeling. It felt like the emphasis shifted much more towards things like good positioning, and away from firing off super-abilities on cooldowns. The use of directional and adjustable length Overwatch cones made even reactive gameplay a lot more tactical; and in depth, and figuring out how to get your dudes out of an overlapping bunch of Overwatch cones is a really good puzzle.

    Phoenix Point:
    PP solves the geoscape issue by having actual strategy going on. You need to manage your relationships with different factions, who are dynamically feuding with each other. Delightfully, the different factions have different perspectives on the bit where humans are turning into crab people and what this means for the future, with a reasonable amount of thought put into each of the perspectives. You can disagree with some or all of them, but there's an actual there there, like the makers intellectually and philosophically engaged with their own premise. Geography matters, since the Pandoran mist essentially acts as enemy-held territory. The tactical layer goes for a much more simulationist approach than XCOM, with a simple but effective ballistic simulation for each shot fired, and the ability to free-aim at specific enemy body parts, pieces of the environment, or whatever. You can see the actual LOS between your dude and the target, and a couple of circles showing 50% and 100% contours of your shot distribution. This immediately removes 100% of that weird arbitrary feeling you get a lot of the time in XCOM; in PP if you can barely see a sliver of a crab person's head, you are almost certainly going to not shoot that crab person today. If that crab person is right next to you, you are going to hit basically every single bullet. It gives each soldier 4AP per round, with different AP costs for different classes of weapon, and with some sort of fractional AP system for movement, so you can spend half an AP moving, shoot, then spend the rest of that AP moving again. It also does such wonderful things as just pausing movement when a character sees a new enemy, which makes scouting 300% less painful. Particularly since, like Gears, it doesn't use the miserable alien 'pod' system of XCOM, so spotting new dudes doesn't grant anybody an extra move or anything like that. Basically, this is the full XCOM experience, except with 95% of the annoying crap removed, and I love it.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  2. - Top - End - #152
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Well, that sounds promising for PP, at any rate.

    I am deliberately not starting any new games, so that I can play something new over Christmas (since I literally won't be able to fragging anything else as of today); I was leanign towards Phantom Doctrine - partly on the basis that is PP is Dead Good, then it can serve a useful purpose of Being Something To Look Forwards to in an increasingly bleak 2021 where Games I Haven't Played Yet may be basically all I have on my calendar.

  3. - Top - End - #153
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    So MonHunt update: Raging Brachydios is Raging Brachydone.

    Gotta say, it's a real fun fight, if a bit scripted, now that i've got some experience with it.

    if you've fought Brachy, you have an idea what to expect from his larger and angrier version: lots of jumps, lots of punches and lots of explosions. Just make it even bigger, quicker, more aggressive and with more explosion patterns and AoEs then before. His explosions can sometimes light you on fire too. You also fight him in the guiding lands, which is an end-game microcosm of every area you've been in so far.

    You'll find him in the jungle area but as he takes damage, he will eventually make his way into the volcanic subterrain part. The last phase of the fight is the scripted bit, where he retreats to a boss room and all heck breaks loose as he overheats and begins punching the ground so hard and furiously, the area starts exploding violently and traps you in. It becomes an even more hectic scramble as his explosions are larger and his patterns of AoE "don't stand here" spots even more erratic as he bounces around the arena trying to pummel the hunters.

    I've largely farmed all I want from him, I technically have the bits I need for his armour set, it just requires me to hunt some non-raging brachy monsters to get them, and I may be one part off from the palico gear. I'd need to double check. Haven't checked all his weapons, which are tier 12, but the Insect Glaive is a fun piece of kit with some nice blast damage attached to it. Probably my best weapon by far for going mano-a-monster.

    I've managed to kill Furious Rajang a couple of times as part of a group, but i've yet to solo fight him successfully (thank you plunderblade, you've managed to harvest quite a bit on those failed runs). He's the next fight I have to learn and it seems like it's a doozy of one. His mobility and the lack of good downtime after he whiffs and attack, in addition to the VERY few weak spots on his body (basically only his head and when he's in full AMGRY MONKE mode, his arms get armour and wider swings to the head may just bounce off those armoured arms due to Rajang's small body) and the removal of the tail (a weak spot of the base Rajang)... ick. I might just skip him for a while until i've better learned how to fight him through tutorials. I've largely got the bits I need for the FR Heavy Bow Gun, i'm just missing the super rare drop... but i can get that from trading celestial wyverian print so I might just wait and see if i can get that.

  4. - Top - End - #154
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    So today we're going to compare and contrast the various XCOM-alike games I've played in 2020:
    I mostly agree, except for a couple bits. I found Chimera Squad to be a palatable little XCOM-redux, everything kind of neatly bundled up together -- the neighborhoods were a simplistic but cleaner outer layer, the team is smaller but quirkier, the missions likewise smaller and quicker to finish. Overall, I wouldn't put it on a pedestal, but it was nice for a 10-20 hours brief affair after a few years without XCOM 2.

    In contrast, I really wanted to like Phoenix Point, but couldn't. The factions were done pretty well, and the manual circles of aim mechanic was obviously a winner, but because of how enemies are placed, the combat never really felt as fluid as XCOM 2 or Gears Tactics. It felt more like the original XCOMs in that regard -- you never knew if you'd face a whole map-worth of deadly aliens looking at you, or end up hunting down one straggler hidden in some corner somewhere. Also, again because of the weird enemy placements, you never felt the proper tactical "line of battle" feel you had in XCOM 2 or Gears Tactics.

    I think Gears Tactics is my runaway favorite for the genre at the moment, though.
    Last edited by Cespenar; 2020-12-20 at 11:54 AM.

  5. - Top - End - #155
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    So today we're going to compare and contrast the various XCOM-alike games I've played in 2020:
    I enjoyed reading this, since I've spent a lot of time on 3 out of 4 of these (haven't looked at Chimaera Squad yet).

    I think Phoenix Point's got the most potential out of the four games – I played a ton of it in the earlier part of this year. It's got some issues that need work, though, and the new Legacy of the Ancients expansion was a big disappointment. I'm hoping that they keep on improving it, because if they fix its issues it could be something really special.

    Currently playing Gears Tactics, and it does some things really well – the action system is nice, and the skill and level system is amazing (I love the skill trees for the classes). But the micro-management and UI for equipment is awful, and in the long run I've got the feeling that the lack of a strategy layer will hurt replayability – I can't really see myself playing through the game again once I've seen all of the story.
    I'm the author of the Alex Verus series of urban fantasy novels. Fated is the first, and the final book in the series, Risen, is out as of December 2021. For updates, check my blog!

  6. - Top - End - #156
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Taking a break from being a horrible goose to try "What Remains of Edith Finch" again, but it's giving me motion sickness something fierce. Toggled the reticle on so we'll see if that fixes things -- once my stomach settles down first though.

    Still on the queue is "Pony Island".

  7. - Top - End - #157
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    I've recently been playing the free version of AI Dungeon. It's a text-based game which attempts to replicate the flexibility of a tabletop game by using GPT-2 as an automated GM. I've only been playing it in single-player mode, though it does have multiplayer.

    Currently, the AI isn't anywhere near as good as a human GM, and it frequently does nonsensical things, but it's somewhat fun to spend a little time on.

  8. - Top - End - #158
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
    I mostly agree, except for a couple bits. I found Chimera Squad to be a palatable little XCOM-redux, everything kind of neatly bundled up together -- the neighborhoods were a simplistic but cleaner outer layer, the team is smaller but quirkier, the missions likewise smaller and quicker to finish. Overall, I wouldn't put it on a pedestal, but it was nice for a 10-20 hours brief affair after a few years without XCOM 2.

    In contrast, I really wanted to like Phoenix Point, but couldn't. The factions were done pretty well, and the manual circles of aim mechanic was obviously a winner, but because of how enemies are placed, the combat never really felt as fluid as XCOM 2 or Gears Tactics. It felt more like the original XCOMs in that regard -- you never knew if you'd face a whole map-worth of deadly aliens looking at you, or end up hunting down one straggler hidden in some corner somewhere. Also, again because of the weird enemy placements, you never felt the proper tactical "line of battle" feel you had in XCOM 2 or Gears Tactics.

    I think Gears Tactics is my runaway favorite for the genre at the moment, though.

    Admittedly, my very negative take on Chimera Squad might simply because I'm vaguely allergic to several forms of banter. Since I rather liked having randomized soldiers, replacing them with people who kept yammering on unpleasantly was a distinctly retrograde move in my opinion. Also I had just been playing a lot of XCOM 2, which means I was pretty much completely out of patience with the two action system at that point, so a very slight variation of it was just not appealing.


    I can't say I've had any problems like that in PP so far. The enemies seem reasonably well placed, and the maps are small enough that I end up in contact with most of them pretty quickly. I haven't had any issues hunting around to find a straggler at all. Firefights generally feel pretty intense, although the game is definitely balanced more towards fewer, individually more dangerous enemies than XCOM or Gears.

    Tactically Gears is really, really good. I wish they had fewer (or at least optional) side missions, and the gear system was less miserable to deal with. Not that any of these games has made micromanaging every single dude's guns and armor anything but an interface mess, but it's so granular in Gears that I really start to feel it.

    Incidentally, if a game like this just replaced equipment micro with broad classes that subsume a lot of equipment options, and universal equipment upgrades as a replacement for equipment micro, I'd be right there for it. XCOM 2 got so close to this by having a universal upgrade method for the guns, but then every single one would be individually modified, and we're right back to square 1, figuring out whether Alice or Bob gets the good rifle today.


    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    I enjoyed reading this, since I've spent a lot of time on 3 out of 4 of these (haven't looked at Chimaera Squad yet).

    I think Phoenix Point's got the most potential out of the four games – I played a ton of it in the earlier part of this year. It's got some issues that need work, though, and the new Legacy of the Ancients expansion was a big disappointment. I'm hoping that they keep on improving it, because if they fix its issues it could be something really special.

    Currently playing Gears Tactics, and it does some things really well – the action system is nice, and the skill and level system is amazing (I love the skill trees for the classes). But the micro-management and UI for equipment is awful, and in the long run I've got the feeling that the lack of a strategy layer will hurt replayability – I can't really see myself playing through the game again once I've seen all of the story.
    Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I was just realizing playing PP the other day that I've played quite a bit of this genre over last 12 months, so why not see how they all lined up?

    I only got PP once it released on GoG, so I have no idea how it's shifted over its weird and tortured release schedule. All I can say is that, right now, it's basically what I wish XCOM was - like a bunch of very smart people sat down and went "yes, but how can we make this deeper and less frustrating?". There's some annoying bits - I think abstracting ammo is exactly the right call and I'm not overjoyed about buying individual magazines of bullets - but the entire thing feels extremely thoughtfully put together at this point.

    I may be an outlier in this, but I generally don't care about replayability as usually defined in gaming, i.e. variance between runs. If a game is very good, I'm likely to play it again, even if it offers pretty much no major differences. Since I find extensive use of randomization often hurts first-time playability, I'm maybe more likely to replay something that has quite low between-games variance. And whether I replay it or not, my view on how good a game is comes pretty much from the first run.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  9. - Top - End - #159
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Playing more Rise of Industry. Today's themes are warehouse troubles and success. Warehouses are odd structures in the game. They have a one way entrance and a one way exit both coming off the building on two sides at a 90 degree angle. And when you slap one down it automatically starts routing all the production from other nearby buildings in it's radius to itself and dispatching those goods to buildings that need them. Potentially convenient, but used improperly this might just end up doubling the amount of trucks and total distance of travel. Along with building upkeep they can end up doing more harm than good until you get the hang of them.

    So I sat down for a bit to deliberately play around with them on a freeplay map. Built myself a production hub around one with a rail terminal linking to another at the end of a city to supply it. Build up as much production as I could around it and played with the roads leading to it. Deliberately overloading the roads, redesigning them. Once I got the one way streets lined up properly it was humming along nicely. I then put in a railway cloverleaf between the two terminals and began linking in more production off splinter lines.

    And then the warehouse in town filled up and the trucks leaving it couldn't get to the stores fast enough. And you can't change the roads within settlements. For a time I was debating just turning off the traffic simulation. After a moment of despair I found out that the trucks were carrying a single unit of goods so I went to toggle the manual deliveries and set the trucks to only leave when full. The trucks continued to leave the warehouse with only a single unit of goods.

    More despair. Then I found out that the automatic settings on the warehouse were to blame. Either cancelling the automatic exports or going into the options menu to change some of the settings will fix this. Now my trucks only leave full, instantly fixes all the traffic problems since the upgraded semi trucks an hold 3 units of cargo. The semi's are more expensive to dispatch but since you need less of them you end up spending less. I was just about to load one of my other saves after a bit more playing around at optimizations then the game hit me with a new warning. A town was shrinking due to pollution.

    I was surprised to learn traffic causes pollution. In the game. Turns out all the truck traffic from the warehouses going to the shops in towns either had or was now due to the change from medium sized cargo flatbeds to semis making a pair of small areas near the warehouse and shop polluted. Turns out smog is easy to fix though. Tougher emissions standards on new vehicles. Pfft nah. Just one relatively cheap building supplied with some water.

    So with all fires put out it was time to load up my island map and see if I could put what I learned to turn it all around. And got hit with a 1 million dollar fine from a random event. Oops. Despite the setback I researched various techs to make my operations more efficient. It was still slow going. Boats in the game aren't as cost effective as trains. Tech and rebuilding costs allot of money that I already didn't have much of. But eventually things turned around. The town grew, I paid to build it a new shop asking for higher tier goods. I saved and built a second production hub making orange juice and apple juice, floated it down the river, and made bank. One factory producing two units a month quickly afforded me enough cash to build 7 more. Started the game with a 10 million dollar loan, frequently had to shut off research to avoid bankruptcy hovering around 100K. Now I'm loan free and at 17 million cash on hand ready to expand just about anywhere or any fashion I can imagine.
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  10. - Top - End - #160
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Finished Hyrule Warrior: Age of Calamity. I love Dynasty Warrior style games. Mindlessly hacking at things with a podcast is a great time sink and the more enemies on screen the better. Nighty Nine Nights this is not, in terms of enemies on screen, but that's ok because that game (as old as it is) had a ton of flaws. I never played the original Hyrule Warriors though I'll be picking it (and the latest Pirate Warriors game) up soon.

    Age of Calamity however was a mixed bag.

    The Good

    Level variety and tasks weren't nearly as frustarating as a lot of older Dynasty Warrior style games. Time limits were generous for missions, and mostly generous for side missions. I never felt I couldn't explore the whole map but rarely did since I knew I'd go back to grind.

    Graphics. The game ran smooth and while I saw some complaints about slowdown I never saw it. I haven't done co-op however and that's apparently where a lot of the slowdown occurs.

    Story was solid as well. For a "what if we won" scenario....it was cute. I'd much rather have had that as a side mission among many like most Dynasty Warrior style games have it but all in all they did a good job with a single story with a single narrative and it felt like a true Zelda game in that regard. There's a few moments of genuine warmth and sadness if you're a fan of the characters and while there's not a lot of time spent fleshing out the characters beyond their archetypes, there's some which was a surprise. The trade off for doing a single narrative rather than a ton of scenarios allowed for it and I'm generally happy with what they did.

    The Bad

    The characters you unlock are just not very fun. Dynasty Warrior games are all about having oodles of characters with tons of different styles and animations for you to try out until you find the one you love and they give you Link at the very start. Link has three different styles of combat. Sword and Shield, Spear and Two handed Weapon and all three are super fun. You have to use Link for the story missions so you're going to be using him the most. The Goron are slow and generally just kind of not fun during timed events of which they take part in a lot so the whole "generous with the time" becomes "too slow to deal with time". Overall the majority of people you unlock just don't have as fun of playstyles, being hyper focused into their niche, as the people you start out with. Impa and Link are a joy, Zelda's great when you unlock her magic. The King and maybe the Gerudo are fun but The Great Fairy optional you can unlock is massive and takes damage like crazy and just is kinda not fun, the Goron are too slow and don't have great specials and the Zora are....just kinda ok. Link is by far the strongest, he'll be the highest level and just has the most versatile playstyle.

    The Grind. God is it frustrating. It's not even fun in a classic Dynasty Warrior way.

    Special enemies like Hinox and the like go down slow and while the combat is very BotW feeling it gets repetitive fast even for a game about doing the same thing over and over and over. Not to mention as the difficulty increases the windows to get their weakened state gets harder to pull off which is just not very enjoyable. A lot of the times I'd take hits not because I earned it but because

    The camera and the resulting jumping and flinging yourself into a glide was off the charts because of how button prompts work and man was that annoying.

    The Ugly

    Guardians. Just like in BotW these things are super annoying when you first encounter them and you never get Ancient Arrows or anything similar to make them less so. Their beam attack is insanely difficult to dodge and by the end of the game you're fighting two or three at a time. In one side mission you're fighting five or six at a time and there's just never a time there isn't a laser homing in on you. They have an AoE splash effect so even when you dodge you're going to take a little damage. Healing items are honestly really rare and if you're using Link you want full health always so it's just a little bit of a bummer.

    I beat the main game, no grinding, in about 15 hours. I might have been faster than most because I've played a lot of these games and am generally pretty good at them. I've seen an average time of about 20 hours, which I find hard to believe. The rest is just going to be grinding, and that's fine, it's to be expected of this kind of game, but for a game purported to have 60 hours of gameplay, 45 hours of grinding is not a-ok to me.

    I still really enjoyed my time with the game. I'm looking forward to unlocking the last two characters and finishing it. I might even go back and actually finish BotW after. Just have the DLC and the last fight to go.
    Last edited by Razade; 2020-12-21 at 12:31 AM.

  11. - Top - End - #161
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    I can't say I've had any problems like that in PP so far. The enemies seem reasonably well placed, and the maps are small enough that I end up in contact with most of them pretty quickly. I haven't had any issues hunting around to find a straggler at all. Firefights generally feel pretty intense, although the game is definitely balanced more towards fewer, individually more dangerous enemies than XCOM or Gears.

    Tactically Gears is really, really good. I wish they had fewer (or at least optional) side missions, and the gear system was less miserable to deal with. Not that any of these games has made micromanaging every single dude's guns and armor anything but an interface mess, but it's so granular in Gears that I really start to feel it.

    Incidentally, if a game like this just replaced equipment micro with broad classes that subsume a lot of equipment options, and universal equipment upgrades as a replacement for equipment micro, I'd be right there for it. XCOM 2 got so close to this by having a universal upgrade method for the guns, but then every single one would be individually modified, and we're right back to square 1, figuring out whether Alice or Bob gets the good rifle today.
    I'm finding Gears a very mixed bag. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the classes and the skill system – every one of the four sub-classes for all of the five main classes seems really well designed. Each time I level up I find myself thinking "man, I really want BOTH of these skills, it's so hard to choose just one", which is exactly what you should be feeling in a level-up system. Very few duds or trap choices as far as I can see.

    But then you have to deal with weapon mods and gear, and it's just utterly miserable – cycle through three different screens just to switch out one weapon mod that gives you a 7% damage bonus instead of a 5% damage bonus. Then you have to re-cycle the mods on all your other characters. I don't know how long it actually takes but it feels like it takes forever.

    Oh, and the difficulty system is all kinds of whacked-out. First time I tried the game I figured I'd put it on max difficulty. It was fun, and challenging . . . for the first few missions. Then I ran into Sniper and Heavy enemies and discovered that they do enough damage to one-shot you something like 50% of the time (as in, half of the shots they take are an insta-kill). And it turns out that the geniuses who designed the top difficulty setting decided that there's no more 'down' state for your soldiers, which not only makes a fairly large part of the Support class useless, but means that any hit from a heavy weapon on one of your soldiers means instant death. Which means game over, which means restarting the mission.

    After reloading the first mission of Act 2 nine times, I gave up . . . which was when I found out that the various sources on the Internet saying otherwise were wrong and that you in fact CAN'T change campaign difficulty mid-game. So I had to restart the whole thing. And it turns out those missions are a lot less fun the second time round.

    On the plus side, this time I'm getting to see the Jack bot and the Deviant enemies, which is nice (though the bot gets annoying).

    By contrast, I think I played something like two and a half full campaigns of Phoenix Point before feeling as though I was done with it, and I'm still planning to come back once the Festering Skies DLC comes out. Having a strategic layer makes a big difference!
    I'm the author of the Alex Verus series of urban fantasy novels. Fated is the first, and the final book in the series, Risen, is out as of December 2021. For updates, check my blog!

  12. - Top - End - #162
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    Since I rather liked having randomized soldiers, replacing them with people who kept yammering on unpleasantly was a distinctly retrograde move in my opinion.
    Not being able to make my own squad was an instant deal-breaker for me, which is why I've given Chimera Squad a hard pass. I just don't care enough about the universe for that alone to be interesting for me. (The same (basically) fixed characters issue is also why I have not looked at Gears or War Tactics either, as I have absolutely zero investment in Gears of War as a franchise or universe.)
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2020-12-21 at 08:24 AM.

  13. - Top - End - #163
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    I can't say I've had any problems like that in PP so far. The enemies seem reasonably well placed, and the maps are small enough that I end up in contact with most of them pretty quickly. I haven't had any issues hunting around to find a straggler at all. Firefights generally feel pretty intense, although the game is definitely balanced more towards fewer, individually more dangerous enemies than XCOM or Gears.
    I might not have put it up as accurately as I could, since it's been some time and I don't remember the exact causes of the problems, but it definitely didn't feel as fluidly tactical as Gears, with lines of engagement and so forth.

    It felt more like D&D, actually. Where each individual has to make its own tactical choice, but that's it.

    I might try getting into it a second time, if only to paint a more accurate picture.

    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    Oh, and the difficulty system is all kinds of whacked-out. First time I tried the game I figured I'd put it on max difficulty.
    With all due respect, you could have probably deciphered the problem from these two sentences only?
    Last edited by Cespenar; 2020-12-21 at 09:16 AM.

  14. - Top - End - #164
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
    With all due respect, you could have probably deciphered the problem from these two sentences only?
    Give me some credit for knowing what I'm doing?

    I usually play tactics games on the hardest setting – I played XCOM, XCOM 2, and Phoenix Point on max difficulty and enjoyed all of them. I played Gears of War on max difficulty and hated it. It's just not well balanced at all.

    And unfortunately, the setting one point below max difficulty is very easy if you're good at tactics games, so I have the choice between "game's too easy to be a challenge" and "game's too hard to be fun". See the problem?
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    Give me some credit for knowing what I'm doing?

    I usually play tactics games on the hardest setting – I played XCOM, XCOM 2, and Phoenix Point on max difficulty and enjoyed all of them. I played Gears of War on max difficulty and hated it. It's just not well balanced at all.

    And unfortunately, the setting one point below max difficulty is very easy if you're good at tactics games, so I have the choice between "game's too easy to be a challenge" and "game's too hard to be fun". See the problem?
    I mean, despite that, you probably would realize yourself that you're in the minority, and that the hardest difficulty in any game wouldn't be the point where the devs would spend the most time balancing.

    What I mean is that the phrase "the hardest difficulty is not well balanced" would be a fairer sentence than "the game is not balanced at all". Sorry if that was what you meant all along though.

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
    I mean, despite that, you probably would realize yourself that you're in the minority, and that the hardest difficulty in any game wouldn't be the point where the devs would spend the most time balancing.

    What I mean is that the phrase "the hardest difficulty is not well balanced" would be a fairer sentence than "the game is not balanced at all". Sorry if that was what you meant all along though.
    I mean, yes, I'm a minority, but if the XCOM and Phoenix Point devs are willing to put in the effort to balance all four difficulty settings, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the Gears devs to do the same. It's not like they're some small indie company!

    And to be honest, the 'hard' difficulty doesn't seem all that well tuned either. I played through on difficulty 4 out of 4 and got repeatedly one-shot and had to restart multiple times per mission. Now I'm playing through on difficulty 3 out of 4 and it's a cakewalk (I can't remember the last time that one of my soldiers dipped below half health). I'm still (just about) enjoying it, but if I give up on the game, this and the equipment UI are going to be the reasons why.
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    Not being able to make my own squad was an instant deal-breaker for me, which is why I've given Chimera Squad a hard pass. I just don't care enough about the universe for that alone to be interesting for me. (The same (basically) fixed characters issue is also why I have not looked at Gears or War Tactics either, as I have absolutely zero investment in Gears of War as a franchise or universe.)
    Gears has a very different level of fixed characters than Chimera Squad. The latter has a small number of fixed personality squad members, with pretty narrow upgrade paths. If you need extra headcount for a mission, you can use robots, but iirc they don't get skills like the real squad members.

    Gears has a couple of named characters with set personalities and physical appearances who are basically there to drive and advance the main story. You also get a fairly large number of randomly generated and fully customizable soldiers, who use the same character skills and advance just like the main characters do. Because each soldier can only go on one side mission per chapter, the randos are actually pretty important and see a lot of use. It's much closer to an RPG where you can use the pregenerated Companions with their own stories, or roll up your own party from scratch, except that in Gears you will sometimes need to use the pregens, and you have the same level of mechanical control over everybody's gear and leveling.

    Also, and this is entirely a matter of taste, Gears is better written. It's kinda meat headed, but the dialog is way, way less cringe than Chimera Squad. Plus the cutscenes are in engine, and look good. Chimera Squad uses astonishingly ugly hand-animation cutscenes - I found them so badly drawn it was hard to match cutscene art to in game model. I get that the game is on a smaller budget, but I've played micro budget indices with less ugly cutscenes.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
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  18. - Top - End - #168
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    I mean, yes, I'm a minority, but if the XCOM and Phoenix Point devs are willing to put in the effort to balance all four difficulty settings, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the Gears devs to do the same. It's not like they're some small indie company!

    And to be honest, the 'hard' difficulty doesn't seem all that well tuned either. I played through on difficulty 4 out of 4 and got repeatedly one-shot and had to restart multiple times per mission. Now I'm playing through on difficulty 3 out of 4 and it's a cakewalk (I can't remember the last time that one of my soldiers dipped below half health). I'm still (just about) enjoying it, but if I give up on the game, this and the equipment UI are going to be the reasons why.
    I see, yeah. Maybe they tweaked the hardest difficulty to be some meme-worthy ordeal, to be streamed or put on youtube. I don't know. Or maybe they simply just failed to balance it, yeah.

    Personally I like the "easier" difficulties (Normal and Hard) in tactical games better, because I like to do blind Ironman runs for that immersion factor, and don't like retrying missions, even once or twice. So I can't really comment on the balancing of hardest difficulties across the genre, but you'd be probably right on that.

    I have to agree on the equipments problem, since I had realized halfway into the game that I was spending an unreasonable amount of time on the unit inventories because of that. Still, it's not really a gamebreaking issue for me.
    Last edited by Cespenar; 2020-12-21 at 11:08 AM.

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    I've been working on stuff that's been sitting in my steam for ages, picked up from sales years ago. Hasn't been very successful, I should probably start a policy of always playing new games within a week so I can get the refund if they turn out uninteresting; though these may've been bought before that policy existed.

    Wargame: European escalation felt like too much work. It seems like just another RTS; and while the units are in some sense interesting, in practice it felt just like standard RTS babysitting the troops so they don't die stupidly rather than interesting command decisions. While there's a lot of variations on each unit, I didn't get that strong a feel of how each variant plays/when to use them.

    King of Fighters 13 steam; was ok, but it didn't really feel any better than good ol' KoFs 96-98. Also my current keyboard doens't do it well; one of things I remember now is that some keyboards simply do not do fighting games well; they don't handle the multiple simultaneous keypresses well, so doing the moves works poorly or not at all. Maybe some time I'll try more when I'm using another keyboard. The gameplay seems like the one things it really adds is super long combo chains; otherwise it's about the same and doesn't seem markedly better tuned or anything. Even the graphics don't feel more enjoyable, which is quite surprising considering the years difference.

    Cities: Skylines is well done, it just doesn't 'grab' me; and I don't know why. I had lots of fun playing Simcity 2k back in the day. As well as original simcity, and many other things. There's a reasonable number of options, nice graphics and ambience, and it seems like I should be enjoying it more; but I'm just not finding it that engaging. Perhaps it's simply too similar gameplay-wise to all the other simcity games I've played historically, such that there isn't much NEW to enjoy. Perhaps it's a bit too easy, and I should try to find a way to up the difficulty level. Or I might not feel connected enough to the city; while the ingame city tweets are amusing, it's not quite enough. I remember Simcity 2k had that newspaper that could come up from time to time; even if it was repetitive at times I liked those stories, and they helped the city feel real. It feels like I don't get to see citizens or advisors really saying stuff enough.


    I'm also reminded of why I sadly couldn't play Legend of Grimrock, the devs did the lighting in a poor way (like actual torch flickering) that causes some sensitive people to get headaches. I just can't play for long without getting a headache and that's just too unfun; and there's no way to fix that problem.
    A neat custom class for 3.5 system
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94616

    A good set of benchmarks for PF/3.5
    https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2...y-the-numbers/

    An alternate craft point system I made for 3.5
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...t-Point-system

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    For something light to play while waiting on the holiday, I've been playing Fire Emblem Warriors again - stopped playing it without completing all of the "History Mode" maps or unlocking everybody's special weapons back when I first played it. I'm quite enjoying it once again. It makes me look forward to both Persona 5 Strikers in a couple of months and a hopefully-inevitable Three Houses-focused sequel. I mean, my main criticism of Fire Emblem Warriors was the excessive focus on Awakening and Fates when I had been hoping for more of a Hyrule Warriors-style game drawing characters from all across the series, but Three Houses is head and shoulders enough above the rest of Fire Emblem that I'd be fine with it getting exclusive focus in a Fire Emblem Warriors 2.

    Though near-exclusive may be preferable. It'd be a shame to lose Lyn, or to still not get Ike.
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by zlefin View Post
    Perhaps it's a bit too easy, and I should try to find a way to up the difficulty level.
    Cities: Skylines is from the same developer who did Cities in Motion, and as such, it's maybe more biased toward the transport infrastructure side of things than Sim City is. If you don't really carefully plan your transport links then your traffic is going to be terrible by the time your city hits 50,000 people, which is where things start to get difficult.

  22. - Top - End - #172
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    For something light to play while waiting on the holiday, I've been playing Fire Emblem Warriors again - stopped playing it without completing all of the "History Mode" maps or unlocking everybody's special weapons back when I first played it. I'm quite enjoying it once again. It makes me look forward to both Persona 5 Strikers in a couple of months and a hopefully-inevitable Three Houses-focused sequel. I mean, my main criticism of Fire Emblem Warriors was the excessive focus on Awakening and Fates when I had been hoping for more of a Hyrule Warriors-style game drawing characters from all across the series, but Three Houses is head and shoulders enough above the rest of Fire Emblem that I'd be fine with it getting exclusive focus in a Fire Emblem Warriors 2.

    Though near-exclusive may be preferable. It'd be a shame to lose Lyn, or to still not get Ike.
    Got quite a lot of Fire Emblem Warrior to do to 100% it, I'd totally be down with one with the 3 Houses cast. Picked up Pirate Warrior 4 since I'm almost done with Hyrule Warrior 2 and to get ready for Strikers.

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by zlefin View Post
    Cities: Skylines is well done, it just doesn't 'grab' me; and I don't know why. I had lots of fun playing Simcity 2k back in the day. As well as original simcity, and many other things. There's a reasonable number of options, nice graphics and ambience, and it seems like I should be enjoying it more; but I'm just not finding it that engaging. Perhaps it's simply too similar gameplay-wise to all the other simcity games I've played historically, such that there isn't much NEW to enjoy. Perhaps it's a bit too easy, and I should try to find a way to up the difficulty level. Or I might not feel connected enough to the city; while the ingame city tweets are amusing, it's not quite enough. I remember Simcity 2k had that newspaper that could come up from time to time; even if it was repetitive at times I liked those stories, and they helped the city feel real. It feels like I don't get to see citizens or advisors really saying stuff enough.
    I have basically the same problem. I like it well enough, but I can never play for more than a little while. I even tried with the scenarios, but... It just can't grab me.




    Got an email that Skunkape had bought Sam & Max and were releasing a remastered version (50% of for owners at Telltale). Nearly snapped their hands off, on the basis of supporting small developers doing Something I Liked...

    And got as far as redeeming a key for Gog so I could get my discount and only THEN spotted the reviews that explained that they have done a load of censoring and replaced Bosco's voice actor (literally because they decided he was voiced by someone of the wrong the wrong skin-colour; no, I'm honestly serious).

    Ahahahahaha, 2020, you didn't even let me have five minutes with that one, did you?

    There is already a modder hard at work restoring as much of the original content to the remaster as he can, but... They ain't getting my money today.

    (Perhaps never, I did make a very special point of backing up my Sam & Max games (along with Hector Badge of Carnage) the moment Telltale went broke.)
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2020-12-24 at 10:36 AM.

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Wanting an action kick I picked up Bloodstained: Ritual of the night because it claimed it could run on a potato. And while I do still need to update my laptop's RAM it ran fine. Almost lowest graphics settings, low framerate, and Miriam's audio (and only hers) seems to be suffering from slowdown, but it runs well enough to be playable. Smooth jumping, smooth combat, smooth backstepping around the castle., and for my machine the game looks surprisingly nice. It's a great Castlevania game, now only if I could get the hang of backdashing to avoid attacks....

    My only problem with the game is, how on Earth foes Miriam's dress stay up?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Well, in my ongoing quest to find a JRPG I like enough to finish that doesn't have Persona or Trails in the title, I got Tokyo Xanadu eX+ and the Dragon Quest XI demo, since one was on sale and the other is free. Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is using the same engine as Trails of Cold Steel, which is very obvious when you see how all the out-of-combat stuff including social links work, but is using a real-time button mashy combat system rather than the turn-based one in the Trails games--and that, I fear, is where it lost me. I've always said that an RPG is a game where your character's in-game abilities are at least as important as your own twitch gaming skills, but they're simply not in Tokyo Xanadu--it's all about dodging at exactly the right moment to avoid the boss attack and the like, and it's just not something I enjoy. Didn't help that the buttons they assigned to things on the controller were just plain weird--oh, so right trigger is one type of super attack that uses one of the onscreen gauges, and pressing left and right bumper together is another, oh, and just to really confuse the hell out of everybody, we'll activate the THIRD type of super attack by pressing down on the D-pad. Left trigger swaps out your third "support" party member with the active one, and Y swaps the two active members (you can only ever attack with one at a time). From what I hear this combat system is essentially very similar to the one used in the Ys series from Falcom, so guess that's another one I can tick off my list as "Noway, nohow".

    So, after uninstalling that game after having played for about six hours, I fired up the Dragon Quest XI demo, and *immediately* I'm having ten times as much fun. I don't like the very stylised 3D cartoons they use for all the people, but the combat is turn-based and immediately makes sense. In fact, I had so much fun playing the demo that I just bought the full game and am downloading it ready to play tomorrow.

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    So I received Spider-Man: Miles Morales as a holiday gift, and have been playing that. It's really good, though, no surprise, it's also like 80% the same as the Spider-Man game it's a sequel to. Same world map, as Miles is still hanging around the same parts of New York as Peter. He get a couple of new powers Peter never had - a set of electric abilities confusingly referred to as "Venom" powers, and limited invisibility - but it still feels like most of what you do is the same traditional Spider-Man stuff you could do in the previous game. The invisibility power does make disengaging from a tough fight to switch to picking off a few enemies through stealth a lot easier and more natural (plus makes a potent tool for the stealth segments themselves, of course), while the electric powers are basically just super moves, though quite satisfying ones to use. All in all, a couple of nice additions to a the solid base gameplay from its predecessor, but nothing revolutionary.

    The story is quite good though, and I've quickly come to like Miles and his supporting cast. Very different set of character dynamics going on than Peter had, and it's a lot of fun to just see these characters interact, and see where this story goes. Hard to say more without getting into spoiler territory, though.

    Seems like it might be kind of short though, as the game's already telling me I'm at an overall progress of 53%. I guess that makes sense given they made the game so quickly after the first though.

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    So, after uninstalling that game after having played for about six hours, I fired up the Dragon Quest XI demo, and *immediately* I'm having ten times as much fun. I don't like the very stylised 3D cartoons they use for all the people, but the combat is turn-based and immediately makes sense. In fact, I had so much fun playing the demo that I just bought the full game and am downloading it ready to play tomorrow.
    DQ11 is very good, though I'm bit a surprised you might be taking to it given you don't normally enjoy JRPGs outside of those with Persona-level writing quality, since, well, Dragon Quest is literally the granddaddy of all JRPGs. Even the original Final Fantasy took heavy inspiration from the first Dragon Quest. And the series has remained very traditional - aside from ditching fully random encounters for ones you can see and avoid if you so choose, even DQ11 is basically the same style of game as the series has been going back to the very first, just with a much more involved (but still old-school in style) story and a skill system for the characters.

    Still, hey, if you like it, have fun, it's certainly one I enjoyed a lot.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2020-12-26 at 06:10 PM.
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Just finished the A ending of Nier: Automata, never having played anything in that set before. Only exposure was via the FFXIV crossover raids. I liberally used the easy mode auto chips, because I'm not very good. Scratch that, I'm very not good.

    But wow, that's good. Dark and twisted, but good. I'll eventually finish the other routes.
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Just finished the A ending of Nier: Automata, never having played anything in that set before. Only exposure was via the FFXIV crossover raids. I liberally used the easy mode auto chips, because I'm not very good. Scratch that, I'm very not good.

    But wow, that's good. Dark and twisted, but good. I'll eventually finish the other routes.
    Honestly the game only picks up after the end of the first route.

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Just finished the A ending of Nier: Automata, never having played anything in that set before. Only exposure was via the FFXIV crossover raids. I liberally used the easy mode auto chips, because I'm not very good. Scratch that, I'm very not good.

    But wow, that's good. Dark and twisted, but good. I'll eventually finish the other routes.
    Just because the term might be confusing, 'ending A' isn't much of an ending at all. Yes, you get the credits rolling and all that, but you're really only about a third of the way through the game.
    Jasnah avatar by Zea Mays

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    DQ11 is very good, though I'm bit a surprised you might be taking to it given you don't normally enjoy JRPGs outside of those with Persona-level writing quality, since, well, Dragon Quest is literally the granddaddy of all JRPGs.
    Thought quite a bit about this comment, and my thoughts in brief: I play western RPGs for the mechanics, because you can build all sorts of different characters and I enjoy that. You generally can't do that so much in JRPGs--heck, in Persona and Trails you can't even change what weapon your character uses, most of the time! So, what draws me in to a JRPG is mainly if I like the characters--if I want to know what happens to them I'll be invested enough to play.

    DQ11 is a bit odd, though, because it does have more character customisation, so I'm not sure if it's that which is attracting me to it or if it's just that I like Erik as a character. (The main guy himself is obviously as blank and silent as Japanese protags usually are).

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